HK and Cult Film News's Fan Box

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Rumors of the demise of CasaNegra (a DVD label specializing in Mexican Horror) are apparently false. On page 2 a link will fill you in on the good news. Granted, you have to go through nearly 2 pages of "nearly" bad news.

The time is 1998. Every living soul jumps at every chance to make quick money before the Portuguese colony ushers in a new era under the Chinese rule. For the jaded hit men, they wonder where this journey will end. Against this background of fin-de-siècle malaise come two hit men from Hong Kong sent to take out a renegade member trying to turn over a new leaf with his wife and newborn baby. They soon find themselves in the throes of a dilemma when two of their former associates also show up, intent on thwarting them at every cost.

For the first time since The Mission in 1999, Anthony Wong (Infernal Affairs) and Francis Ng (Infernal Affairs 2) once again team up with Johnnie To and his regulars Roy Cheung (Infernal Affairs 2), Lam Suet (PTU), and Simon Yam (Election) in another action-packed ensemble piece, Exiled. Joining this virile cast are Richie Jen and Nick Cheung, both of whom worked previously with Johnnie To in Breaking News, as well as new collaborator Josie Ho (Butterfly).

Monday, August 27, 2007

We've got an extra copy of THE FILM CREW: HOLLYWOOD AFTER DARK to give away, so we thought we'd whip together a little contest. Just send any one of your favorite MST3K riffs and the episode it's from to this address, and we'll pick the winner (i.e. the one that makes us laugh most). You can hold off on sending your mailing address until it's necessary. The deadline to enter the contest is September 5th 11:59 PM PDT.

Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett—three of the brilliantly insane minds behind Mystery Science Theater 3000—finally reunite to unleash their warped sense of humor on the cinema of yesteryear as The Film Crew. Charged with the task of giving all movies their own commentary, the Film Crew valiantly steps forward to tackle the best of the worst, continuing with Killers From Space and Wild Women Of Wongo.

Wild Women of Wongo (available Sept. 11) tells the story of a cruel experiment by Mother Nature and Father Time. The beautiful women of the lush, tropical island of Wongo are led to believe the only men who exist are the horribly ugly, ape-like creatures that live on the other side of the island. That is, until they set eyes on the handsome prince from a neighboring island, where all of the men are equally gorgeous! Meanwhile, the beastly men of Wongo, on their way to select their mates, are unhappy about the island’s recent arrival. Includes limited edition bumper sticker and two extras, “Make the Film Crew Dance!” and “The Film Crew says ‘Goodbye’ Wongo-Style.”

…bid farewell to CTU, one of their most popular factions of recent years, on the 26th at Korakuen Hall. Important happenings – Hirooki Goto made his official return to New Japan, in the battle of the Italy Brothers Minoru beat Milano Collection AT by ref stop in what was said to be an excellent match, and finally Gedo & Jado beat Jushin Thunder Lyger and AKIRA in the main after GBH interfered.

Coming out of the show CTU members have found new homes, Gedo & Jado join Togi Makabe and co. in GBH; Lyger has aligned himself with the rest of the old guard - Masahiro Chono, Riki Choshu, Shiro Koshinaka and Super Strong Machine; and Minoru, Milano, Prince Devitt and Hirooki Goto have joined forces with Shinsuke Nakamura to form a new, as yet unnamed group.

After beating him in last weeks G1 Climax final, Hiroshi Tanahashi was announced as Yuji Nagata’s next challenger. Tanahashi will challenge for the IWGP heavyweight title on October 8th at the Ryogoku Kokugikan (Sumo Hall). On the subject of the G1, attendances for the tour were way up from 2006, particularly in Osaka and Tokyo.

All Japan…

…held their biggest show of the year last Sunday, PRO-WRESTLING LOVE in RYOGOKU vol.3 at -yes- the 11,500 seat Ryogoku Kokugikan. Main saw Kensuke Sasaki pin Minoru Suzuki after 8 successive lariats to become new Triple Crown champ. Match went 42 minutes, which sounds a little scary. Other big results – wunderkind Katsuhiko Nakajima beat Chris Sabin to retain his AJPW World Jr. Heavyweight Title in what was said to be the match of the night; and super-heels Satoshi Kojima and TARU became AJPW World Tag Team champions after defeating Toshiaki Kawada and Taiyo Kea. The reported attendance is 8,200, so the actual number is probably around 6,000 – either All Japans biggest attendance this year if you’re a glass-half-full kinda person, or a half-house if you’re a bit more pessimistic.

NOAH…

…announced that Takeshi Rikio will be out until (at least) mid-September, due to a cervical vertebrae injury. This obviously scuppers his chances at winning NOAHs rather ho-hum #1 Contenders tourney for Mitsuharu Misawa’s GHC Heavyweight title. It may also mean that Rikio and Jun Akiyama have to forfeit their GHC Heavyweight Tag titles.

In other news…

‘Black Angel’ Jaki Numazawa became Big Japan’s new Death Match Heavyweight Champion last Sunday, beating Takashi Sasaki in 19 minutes with a low altitude lariat in front of a sell-out crowd at Differ Ariake.

Reawakening memories of his truly diabolical Super Famicom game, former FMW star turned disgraced politician Atsushi Onitaunveiled his new game for the Nintendo DS – Atsushi Onita’s Political Quiz.

Yinling became a proud mother during HUSTLE’s show on the 18th of this, when her giant egg hatched, revealing this monstrosity. Monster Bono is, of course, the result of Great MUTA spraying Yinling’s nether-regions with his ‘special’ mist.

Less than two weeks away, an 11,000 capacity Nagoya Rainbow Hall to fill, and no matches announced – it could only be Antonio Inoki’s latest bright idea. The Chin did announce some more names for his September 8th IGF show, basically most of the undercard from his first show, including Naoya Ogawa. Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar’s names were conspicuous by their absence.

A new feature with notes on interesting versions or films themself that appear on various channels (such as MonstersHD, Kung Fu HD, TCM).

Gappa

I started recording it this morning on MonstersHD before I left for class. At the beginning (before the movie starts). A text appears claiming the film was sourced from a 35mm print and mastered in 1080i! Its the Japanese print (credits and all), but with the English dubbing applied on top of it (no Gappa song). Really nice looking print (clean audio and great vivid colors). Must have come straight from Nikkatsu (or whoever controls their catalog).

Earlier today after blowing about $362.27 on Toho’s GODZILLA: DEATH BATTLE CHRONICLES 8 LaserDisc boxset, I figured I could spend even more money and drove down to Best Buy to pick up LionsGate’s release of THE MONSTER SQUAD, a film I hadn’t seen in over 15 years. After spending some time looking for the film due to the misleading photoshopped boxart, I quickly paid the $14 and headed out to my car. As I was going around the corner of the store where I usually park by the Geeksquad’s headquarters, a suspicious man came up to me rambling about how he needed my help.

According to his story, his wife was giving birth in the Target parking lot, he was bitten by numerous brown-recluse spiders (and even pulled up his shirt to show me the puss filled sores), wasn’t on any anti-biodics, and assured me at least four times he wasn’t on any drugs. He continued to rant about how nobody helps others in today’s world, had only $2 on him, bla bla bla. Being the kind-hearted person I am, I led the piece of trailer park trash into an unsuspecting Best Buy and let others deal with his problem.

Driving home I realized I had watched a film a few weeks earlier with a crazy fuck just like that in the film. It was another Lionsgate release called CHICAGO MASSACRE: RICHARD SPECK, a disc Ian has been telling me for over a month to get off my ass and review. I’ll be quick, because the movie is a total waste of time, unless you are into those torture-gore films that are popular today.

The film itself is nothing original, mostly a cross between a CSI episode and a slasher film. Corin Nemec as serial killer Richard Speck and Tony Todd as the Angry Black Man bring this direct to video affair up a notch, but Debbie Rochon as the prostitute (what a shock) ruins the rest of the film the minute she opens her mouth halfway through the picture. The production values are nice and the film’s muted colors that have been popular in recent horror films since THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake are visually pleasing.

Unfortunately, the film’s biggest letdown is one of the reasons people really pay to watch these types of films for: the rapes. Sure, there is plenty of red syrup sprayed across the screen, but nary a single nipple! After raping nine women, you would think they could have added some nudity to the whole affair. In fact, there isn’t a single bare boob in the entire film unless you count Corin Nemec’s breast implants at the end! Fans of this genre are going to wish the filmmakers could have had some balls and made every rape count instead of this G-rated nonsense. Each nurse should have gotten a DEATH WISH 2 style rape and beating. Instead, they gave us a forgettable 90 minute true crime drama which shouldn’t have even been made in the first place and not worthy of the “disturbing sadistic violence including rape, terror, sexuality, language and some drug content” on the back of the box.

The audio and video quality are the DVD are what you would expect from a new movie coming from a major label with only some compression artifacts that do the jitterbug across the image. The disc has trailers for other torture-gore films like MURDER-SET-PIECES, CURSE OF THE ZODIAC, BTK KILLER, BLACK DAHLIA and ED GEIN, but none for the film itself. A few deleted scenes not worth mentioning, lame still gallery and audio commentary by the director Michael Feifer and actor Corin Nemec round out the disc’s special features. I honestly didn’t even listen to the audio commentary. Instead I watched all of the special features on LionsGate’s excellent MONSTER SQUAD disc in one sitting. I guarantee 20 years from now there won’t be a 2-disc special edition for this film. Why couldn’t LionsGate have given a screener of THE MONSTER SQUAD to review?

I should have given that nutcase I ran into this DVD and see if he could get any bright ideas from it.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Sorry for the lack of activity, but I've been moving recently and starting up law school at Seton Hall. However, everything is now back to normal. We have some great things coming up:1. Screencaps and review for Dragon Dynasty's Crime Story.2. Exclusive first hand coverage of the Lo Meng Philly Fest next weekend.3. A belated review of the first film crew release: Hollywood After Dark and a contest to win a free copy.4. A review of Dragon Dynasty's Hard Boiled DVD.5. Coverage of the weird things that pop up on Kung Fu HD.